


Something Weird This Way Comes

by gydima



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Brief OOC behavior, Derek is Not a Prostitute, Implied/Referenced Prostitution, M/M, Misunderstandings, Monster of the Week, Shortest stakeout ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-29
Updated: 2014-11-29
Packaged: 2018-02-27 07:31:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2684468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gydima/pseuds/gydima
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John gets that Derek has a supernatural problem to tell him about. It's just hard to concentrate on what Derek's saying, considering how very unusual their last run-in was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Weird This Way Comes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vampireisthenewblack](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vampireisthenewblack/gifts).



Derek is standing on the porch. He's wearing a normal jacket today, not some leather number, and his hair seems unmussed. He looks respectable, almost. John still takes a deep breath to brace himself before he opens the door.

"Sheriff," Derek says with a nod. His voice is even, unstilted. 

John's not sure his is when he says, "Hale," in return. Should he let Derek in? He expected he would be the one having to corner Derek, not that Derek would approach him at his own house in broad daylight.

"May I come in?" Derek asks, taking the question out of John's hands. John opens the door wider and steps back, far enough that there will be no contact when Derek passes through the doorway.

He leads Derek to the living room and sits on the edge of the recliner, leaving the sofa for Derek. Derek settles on the edge as well, body pulled in tight and alert.

"I'm sorry to bother you," he says, "but your son made me promise to keep you in the loop when something ... unusual is going on."

John contains a snort. Unusual is one way to put it.

"I don't want you to worry," Derek continues. "It might not be a threat, but there's definitely something in town."

John waits, but nothing else seems to be forthcoming. "Something like?" he asks.

"I don't know," Derek says with a wince. "Something's off, though. Someone or something has been outside my loft. It didn't get in, but it was there. I didn't recognize the smell of it, but it wasn't human and it wasn't a wolf."

"A kanima?" John asks.

"No," Derek says, the corners of his mouth quirking. It takes John longer than it should to look away from his mouth. "Nothing I've ever come across before. I don't know if it's anything to worry about, but I wanted you to know that I'm probably going to try to track it down and get a handle on what we're dealing with."

John's silent for a long moment, thinking. Stiles didn't just tell Derek to keep John looped in on the supernatural side of Beacon Hills when he left for college. He also asked John to try to make sure Derek didn't get himself killed. He should offer to help Derek look around. It would have been an easy, amiable offer a week ago, but now... 

"You'd be able to recognize the scent?" he asks. 

Derek nods. 

"I should come with you," John says, more tentatively than he likes.

"That's not necessary, sir," Derek says.

" _Now_ you call me sir?" John says, shaking his head. "Listen, does this unknown supernatural being have something to do with the way you were acting outside that club last week?"

"Last week?" Derek asks and stares at him blankly.

John waits. He can always wait 'em out. Wait for him to crack. Except Derek's not cracking. His eyebrows are just climbing higher and higher up his forehead.

John sighs. "Look, normally I wouldn't have hesitated to arrest you for that, but you know I was after bigger fish that night. If something was ... affecting your behavior, that would explain a lot and it would be helpful to know."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Derek says. 

"Huh." John sits back and eyes Derek suspiciously. John's developed a feel for this sort of thing, and Derek seems like he's telling the truth. Or maybe he _thinks_ he's telling the truth.

"Where were you last Friday about 11 p.m.?" he asks. It's not an interrogation, but from the way Derek's shoulders go stiff, it must feel like one.

"In the preserve," he says slowly, like he's not sure where it's going. 

John frowns. "Oh, really? And what were you doing there?"

"I don't... I don't know what Stiles told you, but I can shift now. Fully. I've been practicing in the preserve. Tracking, shifting, making sure I can control it."

"Fully?" John asks. 

"Into a wolf."

John has no idea how to respond to that. Is Derek Hale telling him he's running around the preserve naked, changing into a wolf and chasing furry creatures around? Life was still confusing when the answer to everything was "mountain lions," but at least that was less confusing than werewolves and kanimas and demons. This wolf thing will have to wait until later so they can sort out the problem at hand, though.

"So you didn't happen to stop by Jungle on Friday?" John asks.

Derek shakes his head. 

"Look," John says, rubbing a hand down his face, "if you don't remember being there, it's time to worry, because that means whatever this thing is must have some kind of mind control powers or something. And I gotta say, what happened Friday would make a hell of a lot more sense if you were mind-whammied." 

"Are you actually going to tell me what happened?" Derek asks.

"I saw you there," John says with a sigh. "Hell, I talked to you there. You're saying you don't remember?"

"No." Derek shakes his head emphatically. "That didn't happen. I didn't talk to anyone that night."

John can't help but laugh. "Son, you did a lot more than talk."

///last Friday, about 11 p.m.///

There's a missing kid -- a teenager, actually, but it's just hard to think of teens as anything other than kids when you've got a job like John's and see how much dumb trouble they can get themselves into. The boy's parents say he disappeared the evening before, and no one's seen him since -- unless his friends are covering for him. 

John's going back through Sector 5 on his own, even though it's already been searched once. He's got a feeling this is the area, but that might just be recent experience talking. Every bad thing in Beacon Hills seems to happen at the school, the preserve, the warehouse district or the goddamn Sheriff's Office. He's got his money on the warehouse district for this one -- particularly because of the couple of clubs that have popped up in the area in the past few years.

He's stepping out of the cruiser when someone stumbles out of a nearby alleyway, buckling their belt as they go. The guy startles when he sees John and scurries back to the club. John squints after him before pulling his flashlight from his belt and turning it toward the shadowed alley.

He's not sure who he expected to see there, but apparently it wasn't Derek Hale, because he nearly drops his flashlight when Derek's eyes shine back at him in the glare of the light. The beam drops down to show Hale pushing up from where he was on his knees and stuffing what looks like a couple of crinkled bills into the pocket of his leather jacket. He's buckling his own belt as he approaches John.

"Hale?" he says. "You want to tell me if I just saw what I think I saw?"

Derek steps closer, into the streetlight, and John stands very still as Derek wipes the back of his hand over his mouth. It's wet, swollen, and that's answer enough to John's question. If it weren't, the thoroughly wrecked hair would be a pretty good hint, too.

"I don't know," Derek says. "I guess what you saw depends on how long you've been here." He smiles slowly, eyes wandering down John's body and back up. 

The back of John's neck prickles as sweat pops up there, but he doesn't shift under Derek's gaze. He doesn't know Derek that well, but this isn't the way he was acting the last time John saw him. And he certainly never looked at John like _that_.

"Listen, I know you're a good kid, but--" John doesn't get to finish his sentence before Derek interrupts.

"I'm really not a kid," he says, sounding amused.

John shakes his head and presses on. "I've got a missing teenager to track down right now, and I don't want to have to set that aside to take you in for solicitation."

Derek's been smiling the whole time, and John's words fail to have the sobering effect he'd hoped for. Instead, Derek laughs.

"Oh, no," Derek says, stepping fully into John's space. John barely holds his ground. Derek smells like sex and pure satisfaction this close, and his eyes are dark. "What would it take for me to convince you not to?" 

"Are you on something?" John asks. He thought Stiles said werewolves couldn't get drunk or high, but when he has to rely on Stiles for his information, there's bound to be some fudging going on.

"I'd like to be on something, all right," Derek says, voice pitched low. "Are you offering? Because I wouldn't even charge you."

"Christ," John says, shoving Derek's hands away when they reach for him. "I have no idea what the hell is going on here, but you can bet that I'm going to have something to say to you about this later. Right now, though, I don't have time for this. I have a lost kid to find."

He backs away, keeping an eye on Derek to make sure he's not going to lunge for John or something equally bizarre. As he turns toward the club, though, Derek calls out to him.

"Hey, Sheriff, the boy you're looking for wouldn't happen to be a blond kid named Fabian?"

John turns back and narrows his eyes at Derek. "You saw the Nixle alert?"

"No," Derek says. "I saw him here last night. He tried to get in and the bouncer turned him away. I heard him calling a friend to take him to his boyfriend's house in Beacon Heights."

"Boyfriend, huh?"

"And I might have heard him mention the name Grant."

Grant Ellison. John remembers that name, one of the kids who'd sworn he hadn't seen Fabian. He nods at Derek and says, "I don't know whether to arrest you or thank you."

Derek grins in a way John's never seen before, not that Derek's had much occasion to make that kind of expression in the situations they've been thrown together in. "Wait to thank me until I've really done something to be grateful for," Derek says.

John rolls his eyes. "Stay out of trouble, would you? And for the love of god, don't do anything that I could arrest you for if I saw it."

John hears Derek call, "I can't make any promises," as he gets into the squad car and radios the station.

///present///

Derek's face and ears have turned bright red by the time John finishes filling him in on the basics. Surprisingly, though, Derek shakes his head.

"That wasn't me," he says.

"Derek, I'm sorry, I know it's terrible to think that something forced you to do things you weren't aware of and didn't want to do, but--"

"No," Derek interrupts more gently than John would have expected. "I mean whoever you saw wasn't me. But I think I know what it was. And what that _something_ is that's in town."

And it turns out Stiles was right. It's infuriating when Derek bolts for the door without telling John what the hell he just figured out.

\---

John follows him, of course. He can see Derek glancing back at him in the rearview mirror of his big SUV, but John will be damned if he's going to sit dumbly in his living room while Derek hares off to do god knows what.

He considers it a kindness that he doesn't turn his lights on and pull Derek over just for being irritating.

They end up at the vet's office, of course. John still hasn't figured out how Dr. Deaton still has time to see people's pets with all the supernatural nonsense that seems to come through his office.

He follows Derek in, saying, "Was that really necessary? I know you like your air of mystery, Hale, but just sometimes you might want to complete a thought before you go running off."

Derek has the decency to look chastened. "I need to make sure," he says, and rings the bell on Deaton's front desk with surprising delicacy.

They stand together, resolutely not looking at each other, until Deaton emerges from the back room, looking entirely unsurprised to see them.

"Gentlemen," he says, and opens the gate for them.

\---

"So this thing is a succubus?" John asks, scrubbing his hand over his hair. Deaton could stand to be a little less circuitous with his explanations; if John didn't have a headache before, he certainly does now.

"Not precisely, but it's similar," Deaton says. "It's a shapeshifter that is neither male nor female, but takes on the appearance of an appealing man or woman to attract its targets. It subsists on human energy, and it happens to have chosen sex as a way to get that energy. It's actually one of the more humane methods."

"Oh, well then," John says. "Fantastic."

"What do we do about it?" Derek asks.

"That depends entirely upon whether it poses a threat," Deaton says. "Some simply take small amounts of energy from multiple people so as not to drain anyone too much. Others are the reason for the stories you hear about succubi and incubi, as well as vampires. They take everything and leave behind a corpse."

Derek meets and holds John's gaze for the first time since John filled him in on Friday's run-in, raising his eyebrows in question.

John shakes his head. "No new bodies in the past couple of weeks. And no one's been reported missing except the kid who ran off to be with his boyfriend."

"And you said the shapeshifter actually helped you find the boy," Deaton points out.

"Right," John says cautiously. He wonders if it's premature to start feeling relieved, because he can almost feel his blood pressure dropping. "Maybe this one's a nice succubus."

"With Beacon Hills' track record?" Derek asks. "You'll forgive me if I'd like to find out for sure."

John can understand that. After all, the thing is running around wearing Derek's face, taking money for sex. Can he charge a succubus with identity theft? Does a succubus even have fingerprints?

Questions for another time, he supposes, but he does ask Deaton about its weaknesses and how to kill it -- just in case -- before he follows Derek out of the vet's office.

\---

Derek tracks the scent back to the warehouse district, and John's mostly just relieved it's not the school or Sheriff's Office. It's a different spot this time, a little newer, but a club's a club.

John grabs Derek's arm before he can leave the SUV. "Wait a minute," he says. "Last time it took someone into the alley and did its thing there. I can't exactly go into a club without the jig being up, and I don't want you going in there without backup. We should just wait out here to see if it comes out."

Derek looks down at John's hand on his arm and sits back in his seat. John pulls his hand away quickly and looks out the windshield. They carefully ignore each other for a few minutes, watching the club.

John's been on some stakeouts before, plenty of them, but none of them were ever this awkward. It's completely quiet except for their breathing, and even that sounds loud in the enclosed space.

Derek shifts next to him and John darts a glance over. Derek's still got his fingers wrapped around the steering wheel, knuckles white. He has nice hands. Nice everything, if John lets himself look. He probably wouldn't have before -- he's been good at not looking at anyone like that for a long time -- but he can see why a succubus would choose to look like Derek if its appearance is what earns it sustenance.

"Look," he says when he can't take the silence anymore. "I'm sorry for believing that thing was you. I should have known something was wrong with the way you were acting."

"It's okay," Derek says. 

"Is it?" John asks. "Because we have no idea what this succubus-thing has gotten up to while it was wearing your face. If it acted like that around me, there's no telling what it might have said -- or done -- to someone else you know."

Derek's quiet for so long that John finally makes himself make eye contact. When he does, he can't figure out what to make of Derek's expression.

Derek clears his throat and says, "You know what Deaton said about this shifter taking on the appearance of someone attractive? From what you told me, and from what I remember learning when I was younger, that doesn't mean the shifter has looked like me to everyone."

John looks back out the window. "So this thing might look like someone else entirely tonight," he says.

Derek sighs loudly, saying, "that's not exactly what I mean," but John's attention is fixed on the club again. Two people are coming out, one of them the spitting image of Derek.

"Hah!" he says, pointing. "There. It's you again."

Derek's eyes are wide when John looks back at him. "Oh," Derek says, and then he's bolting out of the SUV as John does the same.

They corner it next to a Jetta, surprisingly enough. It's alone, no sign of its earlier companion, which immediately puts John on edge. He leaves his gun holstered, but he does pat his pocket to make sure the holy water is still there.

"Hello," not-Derek says pleasantly. "If you're looking for my friend, I sent him home in a cab. He was a little too tipsy to have fun with tonight."

Derek seems to be confused, looking back and forth between John and the impostor -- John can understand; it must be disconcerting to see yourself in a mesh shirt and leather pants -- so John does the talking for them.

"I know what you are," John tells it. "What I don't know is what your intentions are. Why don't you tell me about that."

"I'm just having fun," not-Derek tells him with a shrug. "I mean no harm and have done no harm. I heard there was some wild stuff happening here, so I figured I could operate under the radar. Ask your little werewolf lie detector. He knows I'm telling the truth."

Derek simply nods when John looks to him for confirmation.

"So no plans for murder and mayhem?" John asks.

"Not even one," not-Derek says. "Promise."

"How about identity theft?" John says.

"Pardon?"

"You've been running around with other people's faces on. Using them to seduce people. I thought Derek was turning tricks when I saw you last week!"

Not-Derek laughs, and when John looks at Derek, he looks mortified. 

"I'm afraid I can't do anything about that," not-Derek says.

"Why not?" John demands.

"I don't control who anyone sees. That whole shifter business is a lot of work and can be really hit-or-miss if you pick the wrong appearance. Spells are a lot easier and more effective. They let the other person see who they want to see."

Okay, that's not what John was expecting to hear. He carefully avoids looking at Derek and crosses his arms over his chest defensively. Lots of people find Derek Hale attractive. He's heard them gossiping about Derek happily at the post office or in the checkout line at the grocery store -- even when he was wanted for murder. Or maybe especially then. John's hardly alone, but that doesn't make him feel any less lecherous standing in front of a man 20 years his junior who now knows he's thought about him sucking someone off for money in a dirty alleyway.

"Well," John says after a long silence, during which the shapeshifter looks gleeful and Derek stares at the ground. "This is very awkward. I'm sorry, but I think you're going to have to leave town."

The shapeshifter sounds even more delighted when it laughs. Derek asks, "Which one?" dryly, and John shoots him a glare. 

"Oh, you're wonderful," not-Derek says. Then he leans toward Derek conspiratorially. "I will take my leave happily if you do one little thing for me."

"We don't make deals with lawbreakers," John says with as much certainty as he can muster. 

"What's the deal?" Derek asks. 

"You tell him who I look like to you," the shifter tells Derek.

"Are you a yenta or a succubus?" Derek snaps, and that's when the penny drops for John.

"Ohhhh," he says, pointing at Derek, wide-eyed. "So _that's_ what you were trying to say in the car." He feels slightly less lecherous now. And he wonders, inappropriately, if the shifter is actually wearing that mesh shirt and leather pants. If Derek's seeing an image of _John_ in that, he doubts it's as flattering on his body as on Derek's.

"Yeah," Derek says, and the shifter laughs boisterously when Derek and John look away from each other. 

"You have to leave town now," John points out.

"Just when the fun is starting?" the shifter asks.

"Go away," Derek says, flashing some fang. 

The shifter seems unfazed, simply shrugging. "If you say so. But Sheriff? I expect that thank you now."

\---

If John thought the stakeout was awkward, it has nothing on the ride back home. This must be what Stiles' brain is like, John decides. His brain can't settle down, wondering wildly if Derek finds him attractive or is actually attracted to him. There's a very important difference, and it's easier wondering about Derek's feelings than it is to think about how he managed to subconsciously lust after someone he charged with murder once.

When Derek stops in front of John's house, John finally breaks the silence. "What was I wearing?" He has to know.

Derek stares, eyebrows crumpled together a bit. He talks an awful lot with those eyebrows. John thought Stiles was exaggerating when he offered to write a guide about their meanings.

"What?" Derek asks.

"The succubus thing. What did it look like it was wearing?"

Derek swallows, and John watches his Adam's apple bob. "Your uniform," Derek says, voice cracking like maybe the uniform really does something for him. John wonders if there's a blush climbing up underneath Derek's beard.

"Well, that's a relief," John says dumbly. 

"Why, what was I wearing?" Derek asks, and John can definitely feel his own face go hot.

"Can I plead the fifth?"

"You're the officer of the law, why don't you tell me?" Derek says, and John's about 90 percent sure that the way Derek's voice curled around "officer of the law" means that's definitely a thing for him. 

"Do you own any leather pants?" John asks.

Derek shakes his head.

"I don't blame you. They looked uncomfortable. The mesh shirt looked nice and breezy, though."

"Please tell me you're joking," Derek says. 

"I wish I could." John laughs to himself for a minute, shaking his head. "I have no idea how to deal with this."

"Can we just not talk about it?" Derek asks.

"Repress and deny?" John asks. His stomach swoops in unexpected disappointment, but it could make sense. There's a huge age gap, and he can't begin to imagine how Stiles would react.

"No," Derek says. "More along the lines of..." he trails off and reaches across the seat, cupping the back of John's neck lightly. His thumb strokes behind John's ear. "This."

John takes a deep breath at the contact. It's been a long time, but he thinks he can handle what's coming next. He nods after a moment and moves at the same time Derek does.

The kiss is tentative and sweeter than John would have expected. He's never felt another man's facial hair rasping against his cheeks, but he thinks he might like it.

"I could get you some leather pants," John offers when they pull apart.

"Dirty alleyway not included?" Derek asks.

"Nah. I've got a bedroom for that kind of thing," John says. "I'm not sure we're ready to go there yet, but you could come in for a bite to eat if you want."

"I'd like that," Derek says.

This time when John opens the front door to let Derek in, avoiding contact with him is the last thing on John's mind.


End file.
